Chapter 9: The Penthouse

The doorman at the Queen Anne building looked at me and picked up the phone without asking my name.

"He said to send you up, Mrs. Saxon," he said.

"Bishop."

"Ms. Bishop. Yes."

I rode the elevator to the top with my teeth set.

I had a speech.

I had worked on it through the lobby of the Saxon building and the whole drive across the bridge.

The door was unlocked.

The penthouse smelled the way it always had, of lemon polish and cold marble.

The same light fell across the kitchen island where he had signed my divorce.

Kieran stood on the far side of it in shirtsleeves, with the sleeves rolled.

On the entry table behind me, in the little glass dish beside his keys, lay my wedding ring.

He had not moved it.

"You lost a hotel chain," I said. "Three years of work, because you stood up in a room and said my name."

"Yes."

"Do you know what that cost you?"

"Nine hundred million dollars, if the deal had closed."

"They liked the dinner I cooked them," I said.

"I know. I let them think it was the housekeeper's."

"I should have told them."

That undid something in me.

I crossed the kitchen, stopped an inch from the island's edge, and put both hands flat on the marble.

"You don't get to be brave on my account," I said.

"Three years I stood in this kitchen."

"You don't get to pay it off in one morning."

"I know that."

"I came here to tell you what you cost me."

"Then tell me."

"I can't," I said, and my voice broke. "I can't tell you, I can only tell you I hate that you did it right."

He came around the island.

He stopped in front of me, very close, and did not touch me.

"Tell me to leave," he said. "I'll go sit in the car."

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